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(Holt, 2012), rather than aggrandize himself, thus, reinforcing the rejection of unearned luxury and privilege.
Another supporting character, the mentor, reveals values through its conspicuous absence in both narratives. Although John Locke fulfils some of the role of mentor, he is only briefly mentioned and is not even alive at the time of the conflict. This reflects both narratives’ deification of their national heroes. Both Sun and Washington are depicted as inherently self-confident in their leadership and answer the call to adventure without hesitation. During the multiple refusals of the call to adventure which take place in the USA’s narrative Washington is absent, only appearing when the narrative is ready for his decisive action.
4.4 Discussion
As the ROC’s myth fades, its relevance comes into question with many in young generations who call their country Taiwan instead of China. The inheritance left by Sun sits idle, as if on a shelf in a museum gathering dust, while a new national origin narrative slowly takes shape. Sun’s legacy, however, told in a contemporary textbook, highlights the insecure state that the ROC finds itself in. The boon left unactualized reflects the nation’s purgatory, able only partially to exert its will on the international stage, dogged perpetually by the specter of its past and the shadow of its immense sister to the north. Through this story, though, the people of the ROC sanctify the perseverant scholar, and vilify the corrupt, self-aggrandizing tyrant. The USA’s myth, on the other hand, is placed, shining, on a pedestal, where it justifies the self-confident power of an exceptional people. The boon of her origin narrative is presented as universal, yet it acknowledges that work remains to
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actualize its perfect ideal in the chaos of reality. Through its heroes, the story sanctifies the strong, self-confident leader and villainizes the entitled, petulant aristocrat.
History class can be about addressing our propensity for mythologizing the past.
Reminders of the heroes of the national past are all around in monuments, memorials, and even the names of streets. Even the heroes of the ancient past have been coopted to serve the glory of the modern nation. Arminius, for example, stands tall in the Teutoburg Forest as a symbol of modern Germany, though he lived 2,000 years ago; the acronym, SPQR, is inscribed all over the modern city of Rome, though the Roman Empire has long since collapsed; and shrines to the fallen soldiers of imperial Japan proudly remain, despite the nation’s contemporary state of pacifism. In the ROC and the USA as well, revered heroes of the past are invoked, often in contradiction to their actions in life, to construct the identity of the modern nation. Koxinga and Robert E. Lee are just two examples of this practice.
Campbell explains this, saying, “Here and there, … are special shrines. Wherever a hero has been born, has wrought, or has passed back into the void, the place is marked and sanctified,” (Campbell, 2004). These icons and stories are certainly a part of peoples’
contemporary identities, but their mythologization must be addressed as part of a greater discussion about truth in history classrooms.
History class is the ideal setting for this endeavor. Here, young people can address, dissect, and criticize the myths of their national history, especially those of their nation’s origin. Too often these stories are presented as objective fact, but they are not the whole truth. Anderson asserted that nations, themselves, are “imagined communities,” (Anderson, 1991) and that these communities are imagined through perceived commonalities and shared history. Inevitably, that history includes some, and excludes others; it chooses
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pieces of the past in the construction of its origins; it aggrandizes itself in the larger community of nations around the world. Through these stories, many grow to see the world through them, and are encouraged to embrace their countrymen as their national brothers and sisters and vilify those considered other. It is through stories that we make sense of the world, but we are not helpless to their power. We can criticize and analyze them; we can construct new stories from the pieces that were left out; we can integrate characters that are underrepresented; we can find where we, ourselves, fit into them. The characters of these stories were not heroes or monsters, but humans, just like any one of us. They were not destined to play out a fixed storyline but were individual actors with agency and a complicated mixture of virtues and vices of their own.
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5 Conclusion
This study demonstrates how the national origin narratives of the ROC and the USA are both mythological in structure and that through their mythologized histories, they contain reflections of their nations’ modern characters. When analyzed through Campbell’s (2004) framework, these stories reveal values that are ingrained into their stories’ telling and suggest implications related to nationalism in the two countries. Within them both are the age-old archetypes of human myths and legends, and through them, deeds of the past are selected and aggrandized so that they form the sacred foundations of a national community.
There is no ultimately correct telling of a national origin narrative. Despite the endless debate on the topic, there will never be cannon of national dogma which will be enshrined for eternity. It will continue to change because it is reflective of the dynamic character of the nation to which it belongs. There is little to be gained from de-narrativizing the national origin narratives contained in textbooks, but the history classroom is an ideal place for these narratives to be deconstructed and for additional narratives intersecting with national origin narratives to be used in supplementation. Nations continue to become more multi-ethnic, multi-faith, and multi-cultural, and even in the rare case that these changes are not acute, those minorities which do exist deserve a voice and a place in national canon.
Careful attention must, therefore, be paid to the values that these mythologized narratives promote.
As the ROC’s narrative continues to fade, a new narrative is likely to rise to replace it. This presents a unique opportunity for those concerned with its construction to build a narrative which promotes a renewed national character and identity. Though it also presents challenges as the population of the ROC is by no means in agreement about what that
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narrative should be. As controversies over national history textbooks continue to appear in headlines, (Chen, 2004; Liu, Hung, & Vickers, 2005; Tsoi, 2015; Wees, 2016) it is clear that the people of the ROC are engaged in a fierce debate over their national origins, one that is sure to continue for some time. The history teachers on the front lines of this struggle should be aware of the powerful influence they have in this struggle, as well as the challenges they are faced with on the front lines.
In the USA, as in much of the world, underrepresented voices struggle to see themselves in their nations’ mythologized origins. In a nation with such a sanctified national mythology, this struggle to include more voices complicates the intrenched, self-confident identity that the narrative perpetuates. The narrative is not without its merit, though, and a solution to the complicated issues related to its sanctity may not be to completely undermine or subvert it, but to deconstruct and supplement it in the safety of a classroom.
The mythologization present in these two national origin narratives supports the notion that modern nations are not as secular as they would seem to be. They are filled with the rhetoric, the narrative structures, and the character archetypes that are common among myths, legends, folk tales, and religious dogmas. The findings of this study, however, do not pass judgement on this correlation, but reveal the insight that can be gained from approaching national origin narratives in history textbooks from this critical perspective.